> -----Original Message-----
> From: RISKYBIZ9@aol.com [SMTP:RISKYBIZ9@aol.com]
> Sent: Sunday, August 22, 1999 12:59 PM
> To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Subject: Re: MD Reality and observation
>
> ROGER AGAIN REPEATS THAT DQ
> IS THE BASE OF REALITY AND THAT
> SQ IS CONCEPTS DERIVED FROM
> THIS EXPERIENCE
>
> Hi David! Let me try again......
>
> My old quotes are >'d.....
[David Buchanan] And my new ones will be indicated by the name
in brackets.
> ROGER :
> >Here Pirsig gives the 4 groupings of conceptual patterns. This world
> >of words and concepts and subjects and objects is not the flux of
> >reality known as DQ. It is often confused with the reality it
> attempts
> >to describe though.
>
[David Buchanan] Presuming this is a quote, I think Pirsig is
simply saying that words and ideas is different than DQ. I honestly
don't see how you get "4 grouping of conceptual patterns" from these
words?
>
> DAVID:
> I don't understand why you insist that the
> MOQ's 4 levels are "4 groupings of conceptual patterns".
>
> ROGER:
> This is getting to be one of those discussions where we need to
> separate what
> beliefs are our own and which are the MOQ's. I have given you
> repeated
> direct quotes by Pirsig and McWatt that say exactly what you disagree
> with
> above. I can provide more. Please respond to these. I have put some
> of the
> best ones at the bottom of this post for your convenience.
>
> DAVID:
> And I'm still
> convinced that this is the source of our disagreement. I'll agree
> that
> the levels are not the "flux of reality known as DQ", because we're
> talking about the levels of STATIC Quality. And even when we are
> talking
> about static Quality it is important to understand the difference
> between the static patterns themselves and our ideas and concepts
> about
> those static patterns. I think that's where Pirsig's many truths
> provisionality comes into play. There's the map and then there's the
> road, and seems that you are saying that our map-making intellect is
> also responsible for road construction.
>
> ROGER:
> No. DQ is responsible for road construction. Below is another McWatt
> quote
> that Pirsig agreed with: "...this means it is possible to describe
> the
> universe in terms of of an ordering function that need not have itself
>
> evolved yet. We are in the advantageous position of sophisticated
> viewers
> using hindsight to re-interpret the universe by utilising concepts
> that came
> into being later than the activities these concepts are used to
> describe."
>
[David Buchanan] Isn't McWatt saying that the intellect, the
utilizer of concepts, came into existence after the "things" it
describes? Seems pretty clear to me. And if that's the case, I'd agree.
> DAVID:
> But the main point here is that the MOQ is a conceptual model, an
> intellectual map that more closely resembles the actual road than does
> SOM's scientific objectivity, but that ought not be construed to mean
> that static patterns of value in themselves are nothing more than
> intellecutal constructs.
>
> ROGER:
> You are confusing concepts for reality. I have given you the key
> quotes on
> pages 417 and 418. Please address these.
>
[David Buchanan] Yea, that must be bugging you. See, my copy of
Lila only has 409 pages and so I really don't know what you're refering
to here. Sorry about that.
> DAVID:
> PAGE 155 "The mind-matter paradoxes seem to exist because the
> connecting
> links between these two levels of value patterns have been disregarded
> .Two
> terms are missing: biology and society. Mental patterns do not
> originate out
> of inorganic nature. They originate out of society, Which originates
> out of
> biology which originates out of inorganic nature And, as
> anthropologists know
> so well, what a mind thinks is as dominated By social patterns as
> social
> patterns are dominated by biological Patterns and as biological
> patterns are
> dominated by inorganic patterns. There Is no direct scientific
> connection
> between mind and matter. As the Atomic physicist, Niels Bohr said, "We
> are
> suspended in language." Our intellectual description of nature is
> always
> culturally derived."
>
> >ROGER:
> >The conceptual model is intertwined as such. Again, don't confuse
> >this with REALITY though.
>
> DAVID:
> What? Intertwined with what? Just when it was
> getting good you went and got all fuzzy.
>
> ROGER:
> The levels are intertwined. The inorganic is contained in the
> intellectual
> and vice versa. (P178)
>
[David Buchanan] OK, I happen to remember that quote. He says
something very much like, "Mind is contained in matter and matter is
contained in mind". I certainly don't think it means that the levels
are intertwined. I think he's saying that the intellect depends the
brain, which is inorganic among other things, and that inorganic
patterns can in turn be mapped by that intellect. To say the levels are
intertwined seems to remove distinctions Pirsig went out of his way to
make. I think you contrued the idea incorrectly and it puts you in the
strange position of having fused the inorganic with the intellect. But
the point of the SODV quote above is that the biological and social
levels can not be ignored, especially in discussions about scientific
knowledge.
> DAVID:
> The following ideas were expressed by Pirsig in his lecture SODV. I
> re-read it with our debate in mind. I was looking for specific answers
> about...well, about reality and observation. I'm just going to put the
> out there as way to ask you about the one disagreement I can't seem to
> let go of. Hopefully you've noticed the main idea I've been trying to
> get across, even if you don't agree with it or understand exactly.
> These
> quotes get at the issue pretty directly. You know, the intellect is
> mediated through all the previous levels and so percieves reality
> indirectly, as opposed to mystical experience or DQ.
>
> >ROGER:
> >...... the "dynamic
> >edge' of thinking is a form of pure experience. To quote RMP': "The
> >ongoing Dynamic edge of all experience, both positive and negative,
> even
> >the dynamic edge of thought itself."
>
> DAVID:
> Um, excuse me, but this Pirsig quote is not a
> sentence. Something got chopped off and made the utterance impotent.
> There's no predicate there. I'm gonna start calling you "fuzzy". Just
> Kidding.
>
> ROGER:
> See P134 for the full quote. My point is that thinking is a form of
> experience. The quote clearly shows that Pirsig agrees. This is a
> central
> theme of Radical Empiricism as espoused by James. Do you agree or
> disagree,
> or do you want to nitpick my lack of quoting skills?
>
[David Buchanan] Please let me assure you that I wouldn't waste
your time if I thought it was just a matter of grammer or "quoting
skills". But as it appears (That's all I have, because of the page #
problem) I really can't tell what Pirsig is saying about "the dynamic
edge of thought itself". Sorry.
> DAVID:
> These quotes get at the issue pretty directly..... It gets at this
> issue of what static patterns are; conceptualizations and abstractions
> or are they the world? This is where we disagree. The first cut is the
> deepest and all that.
> "We no longer need to claim that we ourselves alter scientific reality
> when we look at it and know about it - a claim that Einstein regarded
> As part of a "shaky game"."
> "The MOQ says objects are composed of "Substance" but it says that
> this substance can be defined more precisely as "stable inorganic
> patterns of value". The objects look and smell and feel the same
> either way. The MOQ agrees with scientific realism that these
> inorganic patterns are completely real, but it says that this reality
> is ultimatley a deduction made in the first months of an infant's life
> and supported by culture in which the infant grows up
>
> ROGER:
> This reality is a deduction ...supported by culture. Exactly. The
> static
> levels are intellectual constructs. (Please note that the base of
> reality,
> DQ, is never called an intellectual construct.)
>
[David Buchanan] Again, I think you've misinterpeted the idea
here. The deduction of the infant is based on its sensory data, it is a
biological level mediation of that "completely real" inorganic pattern.
In the same way, the culture that the infant grows up in is the social
level mediation, where the "object" is given context and meaning. Only
then can we have an appropriate intellectual pattern for the
"substance".
> >ROGER:
> >Allow me to quote Dr. Heisenberg:
> >"For the smallest units of matter are, in fact, not physical objects
> >in the ordinary sense of the word; they are forms, structures or --
> in
> Plato's >sense -- Ideas." They are mental constructs, and even as
> such are
> >inadequate explanations of even the shadows of true REALITY without
> complementary definitions.
>
> DAVID:
> Now I don't disagree with Heisenberg, but I
> think you've misunderstood him here. The forms and structures he
> refers
> to are analogies that bear a striking resemblence to Pirsig's
> "patterns", and that is pretty interesting. But you've construed
> Plato's
> "Ideas" as mental constructs or conceptualizations, but that's not at
> all the meaning of a Platonic Ideal. Instead it is along the same
> lines
> as forms, structures, and patterns and fits perfectly well into
> Heisenberg's main point when seen that way. Plato's "Ideas" were
> imagined as a kind of perfect archetype, an pre-existing ideal form.
> It
> was thought that everthing in "material" reality was a lesser
> imitation
> or imperfect representation of the original "Idea". I guess one could
> imagine it as a "concept" held by god, but it certainly ought not be
> confused with thoughts and mental constructs in the normal sense of
> those words.
>
> ROGER:
> I interpret Heisenberg the same as you. My point was that these
> constructs
> are inadequate explanations of the base of reality. If "God's
> concepts" are
> inadequate explanations, where does that put ours?
>
[David Buchanan] I thought you had said that Heisenberg's
"forms and structures" are mental constructs? Thats different than
saying mental constructs are inadequate to describe those forms and
structure, isn't it? And who said God's concepts are inadequate? I don't
understand the question there?
>
> DAVID(on my Eddington and Schroedinger quotes):
> Again, I don't think you've interpeted this
> quote correctly because those quasi-solipsistic goggels are welded to
> your head. (No offense, I'm just trying to keep it light with humor.)
> Eddington is commenting on the limits of science, but I can't imagine
> how it supports your position........
> Holy cannoli, you've missed it here too. The
> cat man's "we do not belong to this material world" is a reference to
> the alienation and loneliness that's been created by what Pirsig calls
> "amoral scientific objectivity". He's not denying the existence of
> inorganic patterns of value, he's complaining about the de-humanizing
> aspects of what Pirsig calls SOM. Its a great quote, but it simply
> does
> not support your position. Instead you've used it like a Rorschak test
> and projected you view onto it. T'was the same with the Plato thing.
>
> ROGER:
> My point is that we should not confuse reality with concepts of
> reality. All
> three say the same. You don't see that patterns of value are
> themselves
> concepts.
>
[David Buchanan] I feel that you've short-changed me here. And
again it seems you are shifting your views. And I certainly do
understand that "patterns of value" is a concept. I've already said that
there are two seperate things, our intellectual concepts of a "thing"
and then there is the "thing" itself. That's what I mean by the map and
the road.
>
> >ROGER:
> >Yes, intellectual patterns emerge out of social patterns, etc. But
> >the entire concept of patterns is an intellectual construction
> itself.
>
[David Buchanan] Now you have the intellectual level emerging
out of a concept it invented? How would that be possible? What? The
chicken came first, but chickens are only imagined by eggs? This is not
a paradox, it is simply absurd and logically impossible.
> DAVID:
> Again, I think there are two things. Social
> patterns themselves and intellectual constructions about them. How
> could
> maps of non-existent roads even be possible? And even if we could map
> nothing but maps, what use would it be?
>
> ROGER:
> Who said the roads are non existant? The maps and the roads are
> "concepts
> derived from something more fundamental which (James) described as the
>
> immediate flux of life".(P417)
>
[David Buchanan] I just don't get your failure to make any
distinctions between the map and the road. Here you describe them both
as derived concepts, which turns two seperate things into one. Earlier
you said it important to not confuse reality with concepts of reality
and now you're saying the opposite.?
> DAVID:
> I think you've gotten yourself
> into a paralyzing and impossible situation. The 5 moral codes and the
> 4
> levels of static patterns are rendered useless by that approch
>
> ROGER:
> "Truth is a static intellectual pattern WITHIN a larger entity called
> Quality" (P416) The levels and codes are invaluable intellectual
> patterns.
>
[David Buchanan] I don't see how this quote addresses my
complaint? You simply contradict my assertion without explaination. If
the 4 levels are intertwined and only composed conceptual models, how
are the levels "invaluable"?
> >ROGER:
> >To quote RMP, "the intellectual pattern that says
> >"there is an external world of things out there which are
> >independent of intellectual patterns".
> >That is one of the highest quality intellectual patterns
> >there is. And in this highest quality intellectual
> >pattern, external objects appear historically before
> >intellectual patterns...
> >But this highest quality intellectual pattern itself comes
> >before the external world, not after, as is commonly
> >presumed by the materialists."
>
> DAVID:
> Something has been chopped off here too... And
> it not only seems to contradict itself, it contradicts all the quotes
> I've been digging up. I don't mean to pick nits needlessly, but
> really,
> the way you've been handling quotes is dubious at best. There's way
> too
> much chopping, sliceing, and projecting.
>
> ROGER:
> You have seen this quote a dozen times, and you have the entire
> document from
> which it was taken. I quoted it more fully a few days ago. Quit
> focusing on
> my quotesmanship, and address the "Fluxing" quote. ;-) (Also included
> below)
>
[David Buchanan] Yes, you've used the quote many times, but
I've never understood what it means. And I find McWatt's document
unreadable for several reasons, not the least of which is the color
coded format that makes it impossible to tell who said what. And I dare
say you put too much stock in a guy whose work is described as
"sketchy". And I'm sure Pirsig was being as kind as possible when he
described McWatt's work that way. In any case, I honestly don't know
what it means and I really wonder what comes after the.... What is
between those sentences? What has been deleted? Maybe it would help to
see that.
> DAVID:
> It seems that your position resembles
> Idealism, subjectivity and even Solipsism. It has you trapped in a
> Cartesian doubt that has you denying any reality outside of thoughts
> and
> concepts. It must be lonely in there. : -) But seriously, I think
> you've taken a position that Pirsig was trying to discredit with his
> MOQ.
>
> ROGER:
> I am not denying reality. How can you say this after all these
> discussions? I
> am agreeing with Pirsig that there is a "discrepancy between concepts
> and
> reality." (and please no more nit picking that reality includes the
> concepts,
> this is Pirsig's words, so if you want clarity, send a letter to his
> publicist.)
>
[David Buchanan] ???
> DAVID:
> Subjectivity and Objectivity are equally attacked by Pirsig. You've
> certainly managed to avoid anything like objectivity, but you've
> fallen
> into some pretty radical idealism and have been gored on the other
> horn
> of the dilemma.
>
> ROGER:
> Well at least you aren't implicating me with Auschwitz! As above,
> your
> "idealistic" summary of my position is absurd.
>
> DAVID:
> And none of this post even begins to address the issue of the
> mystical experience and mystical reality. We're just talking about
> static patterns here. I'll save that issue for another post, but it
> has
> some relevance to the static patterns debate and so I should mention a
> few thoughts about Dynamic Quality.
>
> ROGER:
> I have been talking about DQ the whole time. It is, to quote you know
> who,
> "the base of reality."(P428)
>
[David Buchanan] Well, maybe that's part of the problem. I
thought we were talking about the reality of the 4 levels?
(Impersonating Carol King..."I feel the earth move under my feet...". )
> DAVID:
> I think you've confuses DQ with static patterns that are
> exciting, energetic and fresh. And by extension you see static
> patterns
> as stale, old and boring memories. But I think all intellectual
> concepts
> are static patterns and the difference between fresh and stale is only
> a
> difference in their relative quality. DQ isn't just fresh and exciting
> in the normal sense of those words. It is way beyond that. DQ isn't a
> high quality set of circumstances, but high quality situations can
> open
> a person up to DQ, but then again so can a natural disaster or a
> medical
> Emergency.
>
> ROGER (in his best DeNiro voice):
> Are u lookin' at me? U lookin' at me?
> I have absolutely no idea why you are saying this. I have indeed
> accused you
> and Glove of this very sin, but nothing could be further from my
> opinion. I
> agree with your above paragraph except where you express what my
> opinions are.
>
[David Buchanan] I've never agreed with Glove about anything as
far as I can remember. And I don't recall such an acusation either? But
don't you think I've described your echo analogy in the complaint?
> DAVID:
> I'd agree that DQ is every day, that is
> to say, all the time, infinite and eternal, but I wouldn't say DQ is
> everyday, as in commonplace, ordinary or inauspicious. This may seem
> contradictory, but its really only a paradox of epistemology. I mean
> that even though DQ is ever present and always at work in the cosmic
> dance of creation, it is hidden from our indirect perceptions.
>
> ROGER:
> Yes!!!!!
>
> DAVID:
> So, I think direct
> experience, immediate awareness of DQ, or the mystical experience are
> different names for the same thing. And even though this trip is
> available to everyone, I think it is quite out of the ordinary and
> represents a temporary radical shift in consciousness. It is very far
> away from "everyday" consciousness.
>
> ROGER:
> YES!!!!!
>
> **********************************
> Key Pirsig quotes I would like you to address:
>
> "Subjects and objects
> are secondary. They are concepts derived from something more
> fundamental
> which he (James) described as "the immediate flux of life which
> furnishes the
> material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories." In
> this
> basic flux of experience, the distinctions of reflective thought, such
> as
> those between consciousness and content, subject and object, mind and
> matter,
> have not yet emerged in the forms which we make them."(P417)
>
[David Buchanan] Yes, our intellectual concepts shape the
"immediate flux of life". I don't see any problem?
> " There must always be a
> discrepancy between concepts and reality, because the former are
> static and
> discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing." (P418)
>
[David Buchanan] No problem.
> A "dim perception of he knows not what" gets him off dynamically.
> Later he
> generates static patterns of thought to explain the situation. (133-4)
>
[David Buchanan] I don't yet see how these quotes are related
to our debate. You're not suggesting that the stove isn't real are you?
> This object will not be a primary experience. It will be a complex
> pattern
> of static values derived from primary experience....... In this way
> static
> patterns of value become the universe of distinguishable things.
> (137-8)
>
[David Buchanan] Chop. Chop. Wish I had the right page numbers.
Sorry again.
> The real train of knowledge isn't a static entity that can be stopped
> and
> subdivided.........Traditional knowledge is only a collective memory
> of where
> that leading edge has been.........The leading edge is where
> absolutely all
> the action is. The leading edge contains all the infinite
> possibilities of
> the future. It contains all the history of the past....reality is, in
> its
> essential nature, not static but dynamic.(ZMM 254-5-- granted this is
> a real
> cut'n paste, but feel free to write the whole thing out)
>
[David Buchanan] Are you suggesting that ZAMM has something to
say about the 4 levels here?
> "Experience in a SOM is an action of the object upon the
> subject. In the MOQ, experience is pure Quality which
> gives rise to the creation of intellectual patterns which
> in turn produce a division between subjects and objects.
> Among these patterns is the intellectual pattern that says
> "there is an external world of things out there which are
> independent of intellectual patterns".
> That is one of the highest quality intellectual patterns
> there is. And in this highest quality intellectual
> pattern, external objects appear historically before
> intellectual patterns...
> But this highest quality intellectual pattern itself comes
> before the external world, not after, as is commonly
> presumed by the materialists." (Pirsig correspondence)
>
[David Buchanan] I've already said this is lost on me. That is
to say I don't know what it MEANS. Is he saying one of the highest
intellectual patterns is wrong. If so, he doesn't say why its wrong. Are
you sure the second part, after the ..., is acutally supposed to go with
the first part. It seems like a flat contradiction without explaination.
Besides it is way too frustrating to comment on an unpublished
comment that we've been asked not to quote in this forum. I feel my
hands are tied unfairly. I would much rather stick to the published
works of Pirsig's and leave Doug and Anthony's views out of it. (Unless
they'd like to join in , of course.) I don't feel their authority on the
matter is any greater than yours or mine.
> "When we speak of an external world guided by evolution it's normal to
> assume
> that it is really there, is independent of us and is the cause of us.
> The
> MOQ goes along with this assumption because experience has shown it to
> be an
> extremely high quality belief for our time. But unlike materialist
> metaphysics, the MOQ does not forget that it is still just a belief."
> [ie an
> intellectual construct]. (Pirsig correspondence)
>
[David Buchanan] Yea, its just a map. No problem. But notice
how Pirsig is refering to the mapping of the "external world of
evolution" and not the "immediate flux of life". We can map static
quality, but not Dynamic Quality. We can map creation, but not the force
behind it.
[David Buchanan] It seems to me that you've turned the primary
division of the MOQ, sQ and DQ, into a division between between the
intellectual level of static patterns and DQ, collapsing three quarters
of static patterns into nothingness. All four levels have been jammed
into the intellectual level. Again the intellectual categories that
shape the "flux of life" has no direct contact with any "object", it has
to be mediated through the other levels, which are distinctly different
than the intellect. It hard to imagine why Pirsig would insist that the
intellect be mediated through all the levels and them claim that all the
levels are inside the thing they are supposed to be mediated through. It
would be an absurd case of filtering the filter, or the scale weighing
itself.
Gotta go. Thanks for your time.
> MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
> Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
> MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:10 BST